


The Sokovia Incident

by SherlockMalfoy



Series: Iron Squib and Other Magical Tales [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Canonical Character Death, Coitus Interruptus, Crossover, Guilt, Hallucinations, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Most minor characters not mentioned in tags, Other Ships mentioned only, Some Fluff, Sort-Of Canon Compliant, murderbots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25340812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockMalfoy/pseuds/SherlockMalfoy
Summary: Loki's scepter is found and with it comes the biggest challenge the Avengers have faced yet. Secrets, lies, and a whole lot of mistrust color the relationships between friends, family, and everything in between. Throw a murderbot and two special twins to the mix and it's a powder keg ready to explode.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Tony Stark, Harry Potter/Steve Rogers
Series: Iron Squib and Other Magical Tales [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1084449
Comments: 10
Kudos: 70





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline Deviations outside those established in earlier stories - Original AOU according to Marvel timeline was mid-late may of 2015. I've put it in mid June, and extended it by a few days here and there instead of what I think was the course of 2-4 days total.

They had done it.

The Scepter had been found at last. The final HYDRA base had been located and they wasted no time in storming it.

The nightmare was nearly over.

And with it the mission that had driven the Avengers Initiative for quite some time.

As Tony laid eyes on the scepter, he thought of only one thing. Peace. Finally, peace.

As the Iron Legion worked to try and protect the citizens of Sokovia, as the Avengers mopped up the last of HYDRA at last, Tony stepped forward to take Loki's mighty scepter and-

Bodies.

Bodies littered the ground everywhere he looked. A massive hole in space and the armies of the Chittauri pouring through. The scepter stood atop the pile of the dead. "Cap?" Tony gasped, reaching out to his friend, to his teammate. Dead eyes opened, shot through with so much blood it obscured the blue. "You did this," Steve's voice accused. "You didn't save us."

Tony let him go, staggering back as he took another look around, panic starting to set in. His heart racing as he saw there, Pepper. Oh his beloved Pepper Potts. And over there, Clint and Natasha, both dead and their bodies huddled over what looked like... well, he was reasonably sure it had once been Rhodey. Tony turned away from another slaughter. The voices of his friends echoing in his ears that it was his fault. He did this to them. He wasn't good enough. He wasn't fast enough. He killed them all.

"No!" he shouted, climbing the tower of the dead towards the scepter. It was Loki's fault. Loki's scepter. It messed with people's heads. It had to be messing with his now. And when he reached the summit, reaching out to take it, a skeletal hand grabbed his wrist. His gaze followed the hand up a thin arm, skin stretched taut over bone as the arm became a shoulder. Then he saw them as he looked upon the face. Empty sockets where he knew bright, haunting green eyes should have been. Staring at him in death was his father. His real father. The man who had given up everything, even his own peaceful afterlife. The man who could never die. A fact as sure as taxes. A fixed constant in an ever evolving world.

No, his mind rejected this.

All of this.

They were alive because this wasn't real.

The illusion broke, and Tony found himself standing before the scepter, just as he had been moments before.

He was in the hidden bunker beneath the base. His team was alive and fighting still, and Harry was god knows where this time dealing with some other, probably less important task.

Didn't matter. They did it without him just fine.

As he reached out, summoning the right hand gauntlet from his suit upstairs, he didn't notice the twins watching him from the shadows. The woman's eyes glowed a faint scarlet as she stopped her brother from interfering.

Once his hand was securely in the gauntlet, he reached forward and snatched the staff.

It was over.

It was finally over.

**o0o**

Sam landed beside the gruesome scene, mechanical wings drawing back into the pack. "How are you still alive?! How is your back not broken!?"

Harry rolled off the park bench where he'd landed with a loud and mighty snap.

"I assure you, it's plenty broken, Sam," he managed through clenched teeth. "Mind rolling me a wee bit left or right?"

Sam stood for a moment longer before bending down to help him turn into his side rather than his back. "You know, moving you will make it worse. Steve's going to kill me."

"No he won't. Hand me your pistol."

"What?!"

"I can either lay up for weeks in hospital or I can shoot myself in the face and be up and about in two days' time."

"Bullshit."

"Fine. We'll do it this way," Harry snapped, trying not to scream out his pain. "Kreacher!"

The elf popped up on his other side. "Master calls for Kreacher?"

"Poison. Strong. Twenty-four hours worth."

"I am not dragging your dead body back home to-"

"Don't be such a-" Harry started, then was cut off when Kreacher appeared with a potion bottle in hand, pouring it into Harry's mouth with just a little too much glee.

**o0o**

A full 24 hours later Sam heard a gasp followed by a groan. Gun in hand he spun around from where he'd been sitting, trying to figure out what the hell to do since the damned evil elf thing wouldn't let him move Harry's body from the motel bed.

Now it seemed he was simply going to be moving himself.

With a gun still in hand, Sam cautiously approached the bed. "You mind telling me what the hell happened?!"

"Factory reset?"

Sam stared at him in frustration and disbelief before finally putting the safety back on his gun. "How the hell does Steve put up with this shit?"

"Could you not yell please? Dying always leaves me with a bit of a hangover..."

The entire time they were packing up their gear and getting ready to head back to the US, Harry kept hearing Sam grumble under his breath about "Factory reset. He calls it a damn _factory reset_."

**o0o**

Sam spent the night in the posh Avengers tower in Steve's spare room while Harry spent his night listening to Tony regale him with what they had done and the recapture of Loki's scepter.

At least until he fell asleep in Tony's lab.

"I'm sorry, am I boring you? Saving the world a bit too bland?"

"No, Tony. I'm just tired."

"You know, Clint got hurt."

"And he's fine. I saw him this morning. That doctor you flew in got him patched up far better than I would have."

"We had a couple Enhanced join the fight."

Harry frowned. "Mutates?"

Tony nodded. "One of them was pretty much a blur. That's the one that got Birdbrain. Turns out there were two. The other one..."

"The other one?" Harry asked when Tony trailed off. But Tony shook his head.

"I should get back to work. We have to hand the thing over to Thor day after tomorrow so he can have his dad lock it up. Apparently humanity can't be trusted to keep this thing safe."

Harry laughed. "Of course we can't. Why do you think I bank with the goblins?"

**o0o**

Steve let himself into Harry's apartment in the tower, grinning as he remembered that of everyone in the tower, everyone in Harry's life for that matter, he was the only one who simply had to touch the door to be let in.

Not even Harry's friends and family had that privilege.

"Harry, you in?!" he called after he shut the door behind him, knowing it would lock itself as he continued forward into the apartment. He came out of the short hallway to find Harry curled up in a chair with a book open and on the floor next to it, presumably having fallen asleep while reading.

Steve picked up the book, shaking his head with a sigh. "How long has he been asleep?"

One of the men in the paintings shrugged. "About an hour, maybe two."

"I'll just put him to bed then."

"He was so tired when he came in. That had better be all you do to my son."

Steve rolled his eyes and leaned in to rouse him just enough to get him on his feet and staggering towards the bedroom. After tidying up the place a bit Steve soon joined him. He wasn't tired but he knew Harry slept better when he wasn't alone.

**o0o**

Harry woke to the smell of bacon and eggs and coffee.

Not bothering with a wand, he waved his hand in front of his face to cast the Tempus and saw it was around mid-day.

He and Sam had gotten back the day before. He'd spent nearly all night listening to Tony in the lab as he worked on, well, Harry wasn't entirely sure what it was he had been working on to be honest. Something with the staff though. Trying to get as much data and information out of and on it as he could before... Oh, right, before it was sent with Thor to be locked up on Asgard.

After his usual wake-up routine, minus a bit of playful teasing since Steve wasn't in bed with him, he followed his nose to the kitchen of his tower apartment and flopped down into a chair at the table. "I don't normally keep food in the fridge here since you moved back home," Harry said.

"I asked Kreacher to bring me some. He only brought enough for you until I reminded him you hate eating alone." A cup of hot coffee was set in front of him. Harry smiled, then sighed when he felt the kiss to the top of his head. He waited until Steve was sitting with him, to his right, before he started eating.

"So," Steve said after a few minutes. "Sam said Bucky threw you off a roof and decided to... what was it he said? Give yourself a Factory Reset?"

Harry muttered under his breath. "I'm not going to hear the end of this am I?"

"Eat your lunch, Harry. I know you haven't eaten since you guys got back to the tower."

"Yes mother," Harry quipped back. "Next you'll be telling me to watch my language, too."

It was Steve's turn to mutter under his breath, causing Harry to nearly cackle in glee as he finished off his meal.

**o0o**

Kreacher didn't normally like to bother his master when he was with his not-muggle.

He loathed the not-muggle, but the ill-tempered house elf knew the thing made his master happy. Happier than he'd been since before Kreacher's former master, the no-good disappointing blood traitor werewolf loving mongrel, Sirius Black had died. Kreacher hadn't liked his master much back then, and still occasionally didn't like him much now. Then again Kreacher didn't much care for anyone that were not Master Regulus or his mother, Mistress Walburga.

But... he knew the not-muggle was going to be sticking around. So he tried not to antagonize him... Well... not too much.

Either way, he avoided the not-muggle when he could. And when he could not, he did his best not to look at him.

"Kreacher is sorry for bothering Master when Master is engaged in... relations... with his not-muggle" Kreacher said with a wrinkled nose and a look of utter distaste on it's old face. "But filthy squib ordered Kreacher when Master would not answer his muggle device."

Harry's head snapped up, then he glared at the house elf that had appeared at the foot of the bed. "Can't you see we're busy!" he barked at the elf, annoyed that Steve had stopped and started to move away from him. "People better be dying, Kreacher! Or New York is turning into a crater!"

"Filthy squib made Kreacher come to get message, Master. Stupid, filthy-"

"Hurry it up so I can get back to being plowed into the mattress, Kreacher!"

And so Kreacher relayed the message he was ordered by his master's disrespectful child to give him.

Harry had growled at him angrily, and then dismissed him.

Kreacher was never so glad to be dismissed from a room in a very long time. Not since he'd been made to pop into a room while his former master was being, well, in the same situation he'd just found his current one in.

Perhaps he could indulge himself in a small sampling of butterbeer for the evening to try and forget what he'd seen. He knew what his master and his not-muggle got up to. But he certainly didn't want to see it.

**o0o**

A party.

A damned party.

Well, at least this time they got to finish what they were doing so Harry was in a slightly less murderous mood when he used the slingring to go directly to the lab rather than the elevator.

"You. Out. Now," he said, looking at Bruce with a very stern expression that even had the big guy agreeing with the small one that it would be best if they excused themselves to get ready for the party early.

"JARVIS!" Harry nearly barked. "Set privacy to the highest you've got!"

"Anti-Fury mode engaged, Mr. Potter."

"Thank you, JARVIS," he bit out. The very moment Bruce was gone, the door locked and windows of the lab went black behind him, Harry turned on Tony. He raised a hand, and slapped him across the face rather hard.

"What the hell was that for?!"

Green eyes were alight with barely contained anger but his voice was hard and cold. "Cedric Hadrian Potter, the next time you threaten Kreacher with clothes, it'll be my fist. And the next time you use a threat to order him to pass along a message to me, there had better be blood, guts, death, and an alien invasion involved! Have I made my point clear, Cedric?"

Tony's eyes widened as he rubbed at his face. The scratch where his old man's ring had caught his skin stung. He rarely saw Harry this angry, and even less having that anger directed at himself. "Loud and clear."

"Good. Do not make me have to repeat myself. You will never be too old or too big to throw across my knee," he said, turning to go. Once he was half-way to the door, he stopped and turned around. "And for the record, Queen Liz herself could have been calling me at the time and I'd have still not answered considering I was trying very carefully not to break my boyfriend's pelvis at the time." He grinned darkly as Tony grimaced at the implication, knowing he'd just made his son very uncomfortable.

"You can- you should bring him. Tonight. To the party."

"I think not."

He was still rubbing at the stinging hand-print on his cheek. "You still thinking of proposing?"

"Yes."

"Then I should meet him."

"Sorry, he's working tonight. Which is another reason why I'm so very angry with you right now! You interrupted what little time we have to spend alone together given each of our rather demanding jobs." And with that, Harry stormed off, bypassing the elevator and opting for the stairs down to his floor so he could use the time and exercise to calm down.

Harry hadn't lied when he said his boyfriend was working.

After all, Steve was told in a voicemail once they were finished that he had to attend the party as well.

**o0o**

"You clean up pretty well."

Harry looked up to see Sam at the bar. The man was still rather.... wary of him after watching him kill himself then come back from the dead. It was something they had not spoken of since, and likely never would again.

Laughter broke out nearby as some old geezers were cheering on another old man in some drinking game. Some of them wore ball caps to show which branch they had served in back in their prime. Friends of Steve, Harry knew. Men he'd met through the VA. Some of them even through Sam.

Harry took a pull from the bottle in his hand and shrugged. "It pays to have a decent shirt and a tall friend," he said. "That and Tony would throttle me if I showed up looking like a hobo."

"What's the deal with you two anyway?"

"Cousins," Harry said, taking another pull from the bottle, the lie was second nature but that didn't mean it stung any less.

"So you're a Stark?"

Harry nearly choked on his drink. "Merlin no! I'd sooner lop my own head off than be related to Howard bloody Stark. No, we're related through his mother's family."

They talked a bit more on other matters, devolving into Harry's green gaze sweeping the room and anyone he caught the eye of receiving a very mild legilimens probe, only for Harry to tell Sam what they were thinking at the time. Or some random secret he'd uncovered. "It really creeps me out that you can do that," he said. "Don't people, you know, notice?"

"If they have training, undoubtedly. And if I were to do more than skim the surface then certainly. I'm not exactly gentle when I go digging around in people's minds."

"Have you ever done that to me?"

Harry didn't answer, instead pointing out a woman in the same circle as Rhodey and Tony. "That woman over there's just been shot down by Tony and keeps looking this way. I think you might have a shot."

"Stark's rejects. Great."

"Actually she's thinking rather... graphic things about most of the men in the room." Harry started to wince before breaking eye contact with the woman, turning on his bar stool to watch Bruce and Natasha further down the bar. "I don't think I'll be able to look Thor in the eye after that mental picture. I think she might be a succubus."

"A what?!" Sam hissed. "Those things are real, too?!"

Harry shrugged. "You'd be surprised what is and isn't real. Werewolves. Zombies, of a sort. Phoenixes as well. Ah... then there are the Cerberus. Misunderstood creatures, those. Very friendly and loyal if you know how to care for them properly."

"Three headed dogs are- You know what. No. Just no."

"Literally anything there's a myth for is probably real. As for the dogs... one of my oldest friends has one. He named it Fluffy. Very sweet disposition for a cerberus. Loves classical music and belly rubs."

Eventually Harry was able to point Sam in the direction of a not-succubus looking for company that night. And winced when he was shot down. Harry himself ended up blending into the crowd from time to time after Tony had told him that sitting at the bar all night made him look like a miserable old man. "I am a miserable old man," he'd replied. Regardless, he'd gotten up and started socializing if only to keep Tony off his back about it.

And that's how he ended up trying not to choke on a cocktail weenie when the succubus he'd noticed earlier was complaining to some of her friends about how annoyed she was that she couldn't see if the calendar was photoshopped or not.

"Too bad Mr. October isn't here," one had said behind him. "You'd be able to charm his pants off and find out.

"He might be and we'd never know. He always wears that damn mask. I thought at least if I bought the calendar I might get a peek at his face."

Harry couldn't help but laugh at that, catching their attention by mistake.

"What's so funny?"

Harry, feeling rather bored and mischievous at the same time reached out to a passing waiter and snatched an empty glass from the tray. Hastily he transfigured it into a half mask and held it up to his face before turning to look at them. "Mr. October. Pleasure to meet you fine ladies," he said before he lowered it and let them watch the mask turn back into an empty champagne glass. "Though I much prefer you call me Harry." He caught the succubus's gaze. "Unfortunately, while you are all rather lovely I regret to inform you that I much prefer Mr. September or Mr. July myself. May I direct your attention to my good friend over there, talking with Captain Rogers? His name's Sam. Sam Wilson. Whenever Captain America needs backup, that's the man he calls for help. And ladies, he is very much on the market at the moment..."

Sometime later, Steve found Harry sitting with Maria Hill and swapping stories with Rhodey. "Where's Sam got to?" Harry asked.

"Something about hiding from a demon."

"A what?" Harry replied innocently. And he wasn't fooling anyone, least of all Steve.

"He said a demon."

"What kind of demon, Steven?" Harry asked, still not fooling anyone.

"Funny thing," he said, sitting on the sofa opposite. "Told me to ask you about it."

Maria turned to Harry who was trying desperately not to laugh. "Demons? Demons are real?"

"At least she wasn't a vampire!"

"Vampires?!" This time it was Rhodes. "Next you'll be telling us werewolves-"

"My godson's father was a werewolf. Most of them are assholes, true. But there's some good ones here and there in history."

"You should see the goblins," Steve said, settling back on the sofa. "Why in the world would you tell a demon to-"

"She's harmless. I wouldn't have let her stay if I thought she was a danger to anyone. She just wants to get laid." Maria covered her mouth with a napkin to keep from spitting out the sip she'd just taken. Harry shrugged. "I thought I was being a good friend. That's what they do, right? Put in a good word for each other? I thought the wingman could use a wingman."

"Friends don't set friends up with evil supernatural creatures, Harry!"

"She's not evil. Just horny. There's a distinct difference. And it got her to stop sniffing around Tony and Thor. I thought Pepper and Jane might appreciate my looking out for their boyfriends in their absence." For a moment green eyes locked with blue. A silent statement that Harry was including Steve in his explanation as well.

"You should really stop playing matchmaker," Maria said. "I don't want to wake up and find out you somehow managed to set me up with some kind of secret tentacle monster."

Harry smirked. "So that's a no on the magical giant squid I've got locked in Tony's bathroom then?"

**o0o**

The party wound down. The hired staff had started cleaning up or rousing those who'd partied a bit too hard, ushering them towards elevators before leaving themselves. Sam had left once he was sure the succubus he had been hiding from was gone.

Harry was still next to Maria, now cradling her head in his lap as she napped. Tony and the others were nearby, laughing and enjoying a few more drinks before calling it a night. Thor would be leaving the next day for Asgard with the scepter. Who knew how long he would be gone this time - or if he was even coming back.

Things with him and Jane were still... drain circling.

Maria woke up to Harry gently stroking her hair as he watched the misfit heroes that had become family. They were taking turns with Mjolnir.

"Harry!" Rhodey called out. "Why don't you give it a try?"

"Oh no. Last time I lifted a mystical weapon I found myself accidentally king of Camelot. No thank you!"

Tony laughed. "Come on! Everyone's tried it!"

"You know I can't tell anymore if he's joking or not," Clint said.

"What about Nat? I'll give it a go if she does."

The woman herself shook her head. "No thanks. I don't need a magical hammer to tell me my worth."

Thor stood, retrieving his hammer and tossing it like it were nothing, laughing between sips of his drink about the secret to lifting the hammer. You just have to be worthy.

The heroes laughing together. Joking together. And then, they heard it.

The sharp, ear-splitting whine.

The scraping of metal and the wet slap of some kind of liquid as something sounded like it slapped tile.

Thor tensed as he saw the strange hodgepodge of the metal man staggering out of the corridor and into view. Harry heard what sounded like mimicked breathing - a low and throaty sound before the figure turned around and it began to speak. Maria sat up, reaching into the slit in her skirt to retrieve her gun as Harry stood and strode forward to join the others, a flick of his wrist and the Elder Wand was in his hand.

"No," the voice rasped. "How could you be worthy?" The metal man staggered forward, it's limbs unwieldy as if it had never walked upright before. Perhaps it hadn't. "You're all killers."

Steve's shoulders set, as if ready for a fight. "Stark?"

"JARVIS?"

The metal man took another staggering, lame step forward. It seemed to look around as if confused or maybe getting its bearings. "I'm sorry," it said. "I was asleep. Or was I a dream?"

Tony held up his Starkphone, unable to call up JARVIS as readily as he was used to. "Reboot. The legionnaire's just got a buggy suit-"

Clint was coming up behind him. The Avengers started to close ranks, the only remaining civilian, Dr. Cho, staying behind them for safety.

"There was this terrible noise..." the suit said, a little better command of language now. A little more definition to its voice. More like natural human inflection. "And I was tangled." It lifted its arms and looked as if for the first time. It was like watching a child discovering the world around it, Harry thought. And it was a terrible and frightening realization. "Then... hmmm..." the machine said as if thinking. Thinking! "Strings."

The Avengers looked on at this... thing. Harry's magic was itching just beneath his skin. There was something inherently... wrong with this monstrosity before them.

Tony continued trying to remotely shut down the legionnaire bot with no success.

"Had to kill the other guy," it said with the same nonchalance as Harry often had when he spoke of his own deaths. "He was a good guy."

"You killed someone?" Steve asked, but his tone told anyone listening it wasn't a question. It was a threat assessment.

"Wouldn't have been my first call. But down in the real world we're faced with ugly choices."

Thor's grip on his hammer at his side tightened. "Who sent you?"

There was a slight... record scratching noise from the machine man before a voice no one expected to hear came from it. _"I see a suit of armor around the world."_ Tony's voice. Clear as day. A recording, obviously, but damning nonetheless. The man himself was shocked to say the least. His heart rate skyrocketed as he processed the variables. As he worked through the implications and what this being made of scrap and code and whatever strange intelligence they had copied out of the strange power source of the scepter meant.

But it was Bruce that gave voice to his thoughts. "Ultron..." He looked towards Tony.

"In the flesh. Or... no. Not yet. Not this chrysalis. But I'm ready."

Maria clicked the safety off her gun and stood, casing the exits as she did so.

"Ready for what?" Harry asked.

"I'm on a mission," Ultron said.

Natasha locked eyes with Clint, reading a familiar anticipation in them. "What mission?"

Ulton turned its head to the Avengers. "Peace in our time."

The wall burst as the Iron Legion, reassembled and reactivated, attack of their own accord. The team scattered and Steve kicked up the table in front of him to block one flying right at him.

Harry disappeared, then reappeared with a crack behind one of the mechanical soldiers. "Immobulus!" he snapped, whipping his wand around before giving it another slash with a cry of "Reducto!"

And as it fell to pieces, Harry was caught unawares by another of the Legion, taking a metal fist to his face and sending him sailing across the room.

"Stark!" someone shouted.

"One second! One second!" Tony shouted after jumping on the back of one of the legionaires with a kebab skewer, jamming it into the neck joint.

Thor lobbed off pieces of another as if it were made of tin.

Calls of "We are here to help" echoed from the lifeless machines as they did anything but. Harry crawled to his feet from behind the stairs. "Get to Rhodes!" Maria Hill shouted at him as he tried to get his bearings. She fired a full clip into one before it was taken out by a flying hammer.

Harry looked around, vaguely remembering that Rhodes had been thrown to the floor below them. He disappeared, appearing ten feet away from the downed pilot as one of the legion was closing in on him. "Expelliarmus!" he shouted, overpowering the spell with the intent of knocking the thing away from his son's best friend. Instead, it popped the arms off it. Literally disarming the thing. He was stunned by this for only a moment before thinking quickly. "Accio Rhodey!" he shouted with one hand out, the man sliding across the glass covered floor towards him.

The machine turned, though armless, still intent to pursue. "It is unsafe here," it said in its alarmingly calm mechanical voice. "You must evacuate-"

Gunfire from above turned its head to a mess of sparking wires and charred circuit board.

"You okay down there Potter?!"

"Yeah! Thanks, Hill!" he called back before tending to Rhodes. A quick envenerate followed by many low level healing spells to fix the cuts he'd caused hin by dragging across glass. The clang of metal on metal sounded from above as the fight continued.

"You okay down here?" he asked, checking the man over one more time.

"Yeah," Rhodes said. Harry nodded and popped back upstairs, finding himself catching the tail end as Tony finally shut down the one with his skewer and Steve caught the shield thrown by Clint only to throw it again to slice the last of them in half. Thor's hammer came down and that was it.

The legion was down to one. Down, again, to Ultron.

"That was dramatic," it said, turning where it stood as Tony staggered back, collapsing onto the stairs leading up to the next level of the penthouse. "I'm sorry. I know you mean well and you just didn't make it through."

It was almost like he was speaking to the now defunct metal soldiers.

"You want to protect the world, but you don't want it to change. How is humanity saved if it's not allowed to evolve?" Ultron strode forward, more sure now of how to move. How its body worked. It bent down and picked up one of the machines it had so coldly called to fight. "Look at these... These puppets," it said, and despite its inhumanity there was a distinctly human disgust in its tone. "Only one path to peace."

Harry gripped his wand, feeling the old fire in his belly to fight and to wreck and to destroy that he hadn't felt since the war.

"The Avengers' extinction."

Before Harry could act, Mjolnir sang and Ultron was broken to pieces like a cheap, plastic child's toy.

And as the lights in the machine began to dim, Ultron's voice echoed out through dying speakers. Coolant and oil spreading across the floor in a mockery of human blood. "I had strings but now I'm free..."

After checking that the others were okay, Harry offered to take Helen back to her suite. She did, after all, have an early flight the next morning.

**o0o**

Harry returned to his team to find they'd been arguing.

He'd ask Steve later how much he'd missed, but in the meantime, he slipped into the room and came to stop next to Maria, quietly inquiring about the glass in her foot she was trying to dig out with tweezers. Harry conjured a stool to sit on and whispered as Tony ranted about the nuke he sent through a portal 300 feet above where they currently were gathered. Harry only half-listened as he motioned for Maria to give over her foot so he could take a look at it.

By the time Tony had reached "That up there, that's the endgame!" he had just plucked the last sliver of glass out and was murmuring over her foot while passing his wand over the tender skin.

"How were you planning to deal with that?" Tony asked, anger and sarcasm laced through his voice as Harry finished healing Maria's foot for her.

"Together," Steve answered, and Harry frowned, not looking towards either of them. Something... something about this seemed a bit familiar.

"And when we fail?"

"We'll do that together, too."

And that's when it struck Harry why it was familiar.

He looked up then, not at Steve but to Tony. And he saw an expression in his son's face he had once seen on his own. Right after Hermione and Ron had convinced him not to run off by himself after the horcruxes. After they had convinced him to go back inside and go to bed. That they'd all three leave after Bill and Fleur's wedding.

Together.

It was the look of a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders and knew he was about to get everyone around him killed.

Soon after, everyone went their own ways. Harry had pulled Steve aside where he was certain there weren't any cameras or microphones, at least, he had hoped given that Ultron now had access to anything JARVIS had access to. Which meant his... altercation with Tony earlier in the day was not a secret if JARVIS had recorded it. Harry gave him a peck on the cheek. "You go on to your own rooms tonight, Steven. Since Pepper's not here I'm going to look after Tony tonight."

"Harry-"

"Don't, Steven. He's family. And while I don't agree at all with the fact he's created a murderbot, I'm fairly familiar with what guilt can do to a person if left unchecked. If nothing else, I can keep him from doing something even more stupid than what he's already done."

**o0o**

Once the others were gone, Harry set about cleaning up with Kreacher's help. Windows and furniture repaired. Floors and ceilings fixed. The only thing they didn't touch was the lab.

The lab where Tony still worked, trying to track the legionnaire even though Thor had already lost its trail. Trying to track that damned scepter with their old data and what they had managed to scrape off it before it was stolen from them.

"Tony-"

"Not right now old man."

"Yes now."

"I'm working. You should go get some sleep."

"So should you."

"Too busy."

"Alright then," he said. "Kreacher, a pot of the strongest coffee I've got in the cupboard please. The one from Brazil."

The coffee was made. A cup was left next to where Tony was working, diligently ignoring his father as Harry sat with his phone, scrolling through news articles. Or playing games. Quietly sitting and waiting. It wasn't the first time they'd done this kind of thing. One of them would break first. It was only a matter of who and why.

Finally, after two hours of straight silence save for the sounds of machines whirring and various programs beeping at them, Harry sighed and added more sugar to his third cup of coffee.

"It's not easy, sometimes, to see the difference between what is easy and what is right."

"I just want to protect everyone. If I can't even do that, then what use am I? All this intelligence, all this skill and-"

"And you still see yourself as a failure." Tony was silent, and in his silence was his answer. "Say you succeeded. Say Ultron wasn't a genocidal maniac and was exactly as you had envisioned. You protect the Earth from what's out there in the universe. What then?"

"Then the missions's done. We're all out of a job. We can go back to our lives."

"And how would Thor get home?"

"What?"

"To ensure nothing can get in, Tony, you'd also have to make sure nothing could get out. No loopholes. No exceptions. If you put Ultron in place as he was originally envisioned, you would either have to do so after Thor has left and ensure he cannot return or do so before Thor can leave and trap him here instead. Sure you'd be keeping Loki and his ilk out. But you'd also be stunting mankind. Depriving Earth of one of her greatest defenders or, keeping him here against his will."

"I-"

"You mean well. All great men do. Most of my entire life is the way it is because great men meant well and it all went tits up. They never learned from their mistakes and died because of them. Don't follow in their footsteps, Tony. Let us in and let us help you. If for no other reason than to survive long enough to give me real grandchildren, not this... robotic megalomaniac you've cobbled together from code and scraps."

That gave the inventor a bit of a smile. It wasn't much. Just a twitch of the lips, but it was enough for Harry.

"Hey," Tony had said after they'd lapsed into silence again for a good while. "Out of curiosity, since Ultron has access to everything about all of us, would he know who your boyfriend is?"

"Possibly. But then again, if you haven't figured it out by now with all of the tech and gadgets and tools at hand, I doubt Ultron will have."

**o0o**

Harry couldn't know it at the time, but half a world away, Ultron was flitting through all the data he had collected as he waited in an old, crumbling church. Off in the former HYDRA base, the factory was whirring away, creating more and more of his Legion. More of Himself.

In his electronic mind, Ultron was replaying some... curious things he had come across.

Of all the Avengers, all the information he had on them and all he was still collecting from the vastness of the internet, it was Agent Grim that eluded him the most. He was the only one with nearly no presence prior to joining the Avengers. And then there was this... this... anomaly in the information. A name. A name that given the data had been uttered earlier that very day in the lab where he himself was held suspended. Dormant. Waiting in the slumber of a stasis.

Harry Potter, the Avenger called Agent Grim, had slapped his maker and called him by another name.

As Ultron replayed this over and over again to divine some sense or logic or explanation, a search was being conducted of records around the globe.

And then... a ping.

A ping in an old database.

And the ping led to a file. Buried in some backwater records department where they'd taken decades to even think about digitizing their records.

But eventually they'd gotten around to it.

That name turned up an odd result. A result Ultron did not expect.

An adoption record, followed by a change of name. An issuance of a social security number.

"Fascinating..." Ultron said to himself as he banished the data he had been examining on repeat and instead followed this new path of information that had opened up to him. A slew of signs that a world existed beyond what was currently known. A world hidden in plain sight.

**o0o**

When Steve came in, followed by Clint and with Maria's tablet he found Harry sitting on a lab table. He had an old Victorian looking globe in front of him and his hands were passing back and forth around it, not quite touching, while it was spinning this way and that almost like a compass. He seemed deep in concentration. Nat was at the computers trying to pull as much information as she could from the wrecked databases after Ultron had ransacked them. Thor was watching Harry curiously, fascinated by the wizard's magic which was very much unlike his brother's, despite the grave situation at hand.

Tony glanced up from where he was working on trying to recover old data on the scepter so they could possibly track it, but finding little to no success. Thor, spotting him and the now familiar look on his face, left Harry to it and walked up to Natasha, where Steve had come to a stop after entering the room.

Tony, in frustration, put down the broken device in his hands and moved to join them. "What's this?" he asked, noting the tablet Steve had brought in with him.

"A message. Ultron killed Strucker."

The tablet was passed to Thor, who rather forcefully shoved it into Tony's chest.

Harry gave up the search as a lost cause. What little trace of the scepter's power he had to go on for his location spell wasn't enough to trace such a small object with such a wide expanse. He didn't get much more than what Thor got, which was just a general trajectory. He opened his eyes and stretched in time to see Bruce join the others. The wizard moved the globe aside and scooted forward so he could climb off the table.

Harry was across the room and at Tony's side, peering at the tablet and trying to see what was there.

"And he did a Banksy at the crime scene just for us," Tony said, tilting the tablet a bit so Harry could see it better.

The wizard tensed. His breath caught for just a moment before he was able to even it out again and hope no one had noticed. He recognized the dead man in the photo. Harry was thankful no one in the room was a mind reader because he certainly didn't want to explain why he was absolutely thrilled to see the man dead in his cell. He'd never known the man's name, but he knew his voice. Knew his face. Because that face had tortured him. It had taunted him during his capture until they simply didn't come to get him anymore.

He'd thought Anita and her team had taken them all out.

Clearly that wasn't the case.

Harry stepped away so he didn't have to look at it and rubbed at his eyes trying to make memories of his time as a prisoner of HYDRA. His reactions, unfortunately, didn't go unnoticed by Bruce, who was giving him a concerned look while Natasha was talking about the murder, the message, just being a distraction.

"Strucker knew something," Steve said, glancing past Tony to Harry before refocusing on the matter at hand. He could pull Harry aside later. Right now though, they had a job to do. "Something that Ultron wanted us to miss."

"I'm betting," Nat said, turning back to the computer terminal in front of her. It was useless, though, as what she wanted to find was no longer there. "Yeah, everything we had on Strucker's been erased."

"Not everything," Tony and Harry said at the same time, causing the pair of them to look at one another, their matching expressions catching each one slightly off guard. "The SHIELD hard copies," Tony said when Harry didn't say anything further.

"That's right. My entire service record, all my reports for my SHIELD missions, everything was kept in hardcopy only. For this kind of exact situation actually."

"Seriously?"

Harry shrugged, and in the act brushed aside his moment of weakness and the mask of the savior, the soldier, the avenger called Grim, was firmly back in place. "Yes. We couldn't risk the secret of my people getting out to the wider world at the time. Given my background it was impossible to keep it secret if it were digitized. Someone like Tony could have easily found it."

Tony whirled around, now having a direction to focus his guilt and the motivation it provided in. "Alright. Birdbrain, Nat, you two get with Agent Hill and drag out those old records. Harry, Cap, you two find somewhere that isn't this lab and make it a landing zone for all the paperwork. Bruce, you keep working on the tracker. If this doesn't pan out that's our only other lead."

"What about Thor?"

"If we need a sudden thunderstorm, sure. Till then, Point Break can relax or join us all in the great paperwork hunt when the records get here."

**o0o**

They spent a few hours searching once the boxes got there. And there were still yet more to go through.

Steve dropped another on the table in front of Tony, who was growing more and more frustrated with every discarded paper.

"Known associates," Steve said as he lifted the lid on the cardboard box and started handing stacks of papers inside to those near him.

Bruce looked at the stacks. "Strucker had a lot of friends," he said as he started to sort through what he was given.

Tony looked at the top pages of each stack after seeing his own. The photographs were all people he recognized from the part of his life he'd left behind when he came back from Afghanistan. "Oh these people are all horrible," he said, then glanced down to Bruce's stack just as he was about to discard another sheet. "Wait," he said, pointing. It caused Bruce to stop. "I know that guy."

Bruce handed him the papers. When Clint noticed, he nudged Harry, who looked up with a frown. "What?"

"Looks like they found something."

"Back in the day," Tony had added quickly as he started to explain to Thor, Cap, and Bruce and Nat who'd come up at the end of the table. "He operates off the African coast."

Clint and Harry put their own work down, grateful for anything that meant they didn't have to keep thumbing through old, musty papers.

"Black market arms," Tony continued, and looked properly affronted when Steve gave him an incredulous look. "There are conventions! I meet people. I never sold him anything."

"I should hope not, Tony," Harry chimed in from Tony's right as Clint came up on the man's left.

Tony rolled his eyes before redirecting his focus. "Last time I met him he was talking about finding something new. A game changer. It was all very..." he explained as Steve took the file and photos, which he passed to Thor.

Thor frowned, looking at the photo of the man Tony had recognized. "What's this?" he asked, pointing to a mark unlike the others on the man in the photo.

"He had this tattoo," Tony said.

"No, these are tattoos. This is a brand," Thor clarified, pointing to the picture again.

Bruce held his hand out. "Here, let me see. I might be able to find something on it," he said. Thor turned the paper so he could see it clearly and with a nod Bruce left to the nearest computer.

From there, well, it wasn't hard to figure out where they needed to go and what Ultron was trying to keep them from finding out. He was after vibranium. A metal not even the goblins could get their greedy hands on.

**o0o**

It wasn't supposed to go so bad so quickly.

"Stark is... he's a sickness!" they heard Ultron exclaim in simulated disgust as Tony dropped in on the catwalk with Thor and Cap stepping in for backup, providing distraction for the stealthier members of the team to take better positions. Bruce stayed back at the quinjet... the big guy didn't do well in confined spaces after all.

And then... Tony had to open his big, dumb mouth.

"Ah Junior... You're gonna break your old man's heart."

"Like you keep breaking yours?" Ultron quipped.

Tony chose, thankfully, to ignore it. And Thor, thankfully, didn't pick up on it.

Instead the god of thunder said, "Nobody has to break anything."

"Clearly you've never made an omelette," the metal man replied.

Tony's voice was clearly annoyed as he said, "He beat me by one second."

"Ah... funny Mr. Stark," the young man with Ultron started. "It's what's comfortable." He gestured to the weapons around them. "Just like old times."

Tony swallowed back the words he'd almost shouted at the man. The kid, really. Instead his guilt guided his words. Just as it had for the last few days. "This was never my life."

Harry was creeping around, securing as many potential hostiles as he could. Mostly Klaue's men. Whatever fight went down, they wanted to keep the number of casualties down. If that meant Harry used a sticking charm to keep a man glued to his seat in an office somewhere, then that's what the wizard was going to do. While Nat and Clint kept an eye from above and below, Harry tried to clear the field before things kicked off.

So he wasn't present at the heart of things when Ultron had cogged on to the fact the Avengers... they were stalling for time. And his little human pets were falling right in line with the heroes' plan.

And that.... that was when shit really hit the fan.

Nat's voice came over the coms. "Harry, thought you were dealing with the extra?"

"One man versus an entire ship. Oh, I don't know, might take a few bloody hours!"

"I've got goons coming in hot and bothered."

After this Harry practically flew through the corridors of the old, rusty ship, flinging spells like he were Voldemort passing out crucios. Stunners, sticking charms, anything non-lethal but immobillising he could think of to diminish the number of combatants available until he found his way back out to the main floor of the blackmarket warehouse. He stopped, nearly being crashed into by Thor's hammer which was dragging "Is that a-"

He didn't finish as a legionnaire fired at him. Harry brought his hands up and formed the chi shield with one hand before flinging a bombarda at the thing and moving on, systematically attacking anything that wasn't human.

Until he caught a fist to the face as he came upon Thor, staggering around as if in a daze, fighting off an imaginary foe.

"What the hell Thor! Friendly bloody fire mate!"

The only warning he received was when he got a good look at Thor's face... at the cloudy sheen to his eyes. "Oh fu-"

And then Harry was gone.

Or rather, the old derelict ship they were in was gone. Replaced with the laughter of men and women in cloaks as his clothes were ripped violently away. As foul tasting concoctions were forced down the throat that could no longer scream it was so raw and bloody and abused.

To an outside observer, the magic man crumpled to the floor and crawled on his belly across the chamber to a corner, curling in on himself and whimpering like a frightened child trying to hide away. But to Wanda Maximoff, the woman who had caused the mighty and unkillable man to be reduced to such... that is not what she saw. No she saw the minds as they were warped by her visions, by their own worst fears and memories.

And what she saw in that man's mind... she wouldn't wish on anyone.

By the time she found the arrow guy, Hawkeye, she believed Ultron had called him when he told her and her brother about each of the Avengers and what they can do, she was almost grateful he had stopped her. It broke her connection to her victims minds and freed her from the nightmares she had inflicted upon them.

**o0o**

The first thing Harry did when he came to was promptly vomit.

He wasn't aware of much outside the fact he was clinging to Natasha in the quinjet, speaking gibberish, and sobbing like a child and refusing to let anyone but Natasha get close to him. Not even Tony.

"Whoaaaa!" Tony exclaimed when Harry had nearly splashed his puke on his shoes. "Hope you're gonna whip out the wand for that."

Harry grimaced at the taste in his mouth as he passed a lazy hand towards the puke puddle.

"A bit of air freshener wouldn't be amiss," Tony added. Harry glared at him as he rather embarrassingly extricated himself from Natasha, quietly thanking her for, well, allowing him to glom on like he apparently had.

"It was either me or the big guy, and we couldn't fit him in here and expect there to be room with the rest of us."

"Oh. Well... regardless, thank you. Now, I'll be off to the loo to freshen up a bit."

Harry didn't come back out until they'd touched down on a farm that Clint had told Tony was a safe house.

**o0o**

The first thing Harry did when no one was looking was call for Kreacher and ask him to take a look at the pantry for the Barton family and let him know if they needed anything. The elf grumbled but nodded and disappeared. Harry had expected Kreacher to return for orders on what to do with the information, but instead heard a shout from downstairs as he and Tony were making themselves comfortable in the room Laura had directed them to. Not that Harry didn't want to share with Steve but... It made more sense not to argue about his placement with Tony since they were, after all, family.

Even if everyone thought they were cousins.

The two hurried down the stairs towards the shout to find Clint in the kitchen, with his daughter, frantically trying to escape the flood of non-perishables that had escaped the pantry when the poor girl went to fetch herself a snack.

"How the ruddy hell-"

"Language," Tony quipped with a grin. "There's children present."

"Shut it, you toerag," Harry snapped back. "What in the name of Merlin happened in here?" And then he realized what had happened. Tony must have had the same idea.

"Did you call that grumpy old elf of yours to, I don't know, make sure Thor, Cap, and Brucie didn't eat poor Birdbrain's wife out of house and home?"

Harry slowly nodded, taking out his holly wand and giving it a few waves as he used his magic to help clean and organize the mess he'd been the cause of. "Sorry about that, Clint. I'd simply asked my elf to check, not to restock everything himself. It was my intent for the elf to replace whatever we used while we were here, not give you an entire bunker's worth of food."

"Pretty sure Laura won't mind being able to skip the grocery store for a while," Clint said with a laugh as Harry plucked a bag of chips from the air, handing it off to the kid who'd been shell shocked by boxes of mashed potatoes and instant rice pouring out of the panty.

"I'll help expand the space and ensure that it shrinks back down as stuff gets used until it's the rightful size again. I can't imagine you'd like to store extra cans of creamed corn under your bed for months."

**o0o**

Thor had taken off already. It was now their second night on the Barton farm and they were no closer to stopping Ultron. Tony was out cold and Harry couldn't sleep. The last patronus response arrived just before the kids were put to bed. His old boss didn't have any leads, but the existence of the twins wasn't much of a surprise to her. Anita had been able to pull up their names in her records on the last case he worked for WARD. The one that took down the ICW.

The Maximoff twins were on the same list of names that Tony's birth name was on. Only... it was noted that they'd been added later as volunteers rather than _retrieved assets_. And that's what still bothered him. He thought the HYDRA agents and the scientists in charge of the base he was held in had been captured and dealt with. The damn scepter was probably in the same building as him the entire time and he'd never known it. Never even sensed its power.

Then again with his magic suppressed as it was at the time...

Now Strucker, the man who was apparently in charge, was dead. But not before succeeding in the mad, twisted plan HYDRA and their wizarding co-conspirators had managed to come up with. Giving power to the powerless. Using magic to replicate something that... that could not be replicated because no one knew, even now, exactly how it had happened. There were best guesses, but without the man who'd started it all, there was no way of knowing for certain.

And even then, the only success... well...

"You couldn't sleep either?"

Harry looked up from the muggle book across his lap where he'd been staring at the open pages, but not even reading them, by the light of a bluebottle flame. Speak of the accident himself. "Sorry if I woke you when I slipped out-"

"I couldn't sleep either. I was just laying on the couch staring at the ceiling when you went by. You've been out here a while. Thought you might need the company."

Harry shrugged as he made room on the blanket he'd transfigured from a couple of rocks. Steve sat down, but didn't reach out. Since... Well... since that woman got in their heads, Harry was skittish. Didn't want to be touched. Not even by Nat who he'd been clinging to while he was speaking the snake tongue, as Tony had called it, until he came back around on his own. "Just thought I'd come out for some fresh air is all."

"You want to-"

"No. I'd rather not," Harry said, then hastily added. "Someday, yes. But right now it's still a little too... too raw. God it's been over thirty years since it happened but with what she... I haven't had my mind invaded like that in a very long time."

"I guess now we all know a bit what Clint must have felt when Loki got in his and started messing around."

Harry just hummed as he pretended, and failed, to read his book. With a sigh, he put it away and moved about on the blanket until he could stretch out and put his head in Steve's lap. "Just... keep your hands where I can see them and I won't be too skittish."

Steve nodded and rested a hand on the messy black hair. "Is this alright?"

Harry frowned a moment, then gave a very small nod. "Yes. Stay on top of it and don't let your fingers get twisted. I might try to rip your arm off and that wouldn't be good for either of us."

Steve sat there for a while, Harry's head in his lap as he stared up at the stars. The barn obscured their view of the house, but even still Harry threw up a muggle repelling ward regardless for a bit of privacy.

After Harry managed to will his body to relax under Steve's careful strokes of his head, the super soldier spoke. "She showed me... she showed me what might have been if I hadn't sunk the plane."

"Oh?"

"Yeah... It was a dance hall. Everyone was happy. Celebrating the end of the war. Then... Then Peggy showed up. She was gorgeous. Just like I remember her... When I took the plane down into the ice, we were talking about a date. I think it was just so we didn't have to hear the other one say goodbye."

A moment of thought. Harry chewed his lip. Then shifted his gaze from the stars to Steve's face. "If you had the opportunity and the means, would you go back and go on that date with her? Live out a normal life?"

"Fresh out of the ice and lost in a new century? Maybe. Peggy was... I don't know. I could see myself having a life with her but at the same time, I don't think I'd have been happy settling down."

Harry only hummed.

"Besides, after I got my memories back from that summer you spent with me in Brooklyn-"

"How'd that happen, anyway?"

Steve ignored the question. "I don't think she'd have been the right dance partner for me after all."

The pair of them slipped back into the house a while later, just as the sun was coming up. Harry went for the kitchen, wanting to get a start on breakfast before Laura got up and chased him out and took over. Steve went for a cold shower before the bathrooms got tied up like they had the day before.

**o0o**

Laura had scolded him when she woke up to fix everyone's breakfast. Harry had shrugged. "Trust me, cooking for this army is nothing compared to the rest of my family," he had said as he slid a pancake out of the pan. "You should see Thanksgiving and Christmas at the tower when the whole gang's together. As a matter of fact, now that we know about you, your family is welcome to join us. Your kids would get along well with my great nieces and nephews."

"You're not that old, surely."

"Mrs. Barton, I remember the sixties. As a matter of fact I remember when both Doctor Who and Star Trek were brand new. I didn't get to enjoy it myself, but muggleborn classmates told me about it from time to time after the summers away from school." He added another pancake to the stack. He grinned then. "It helps that my people tend to find their partners early in life, often getting married right out of school and starting a family not long after. Parents are typically 17 to 20 years older than their children. Especially when there's a war on. Speaking of... madam, take advantage of the break while you can. You and your husband will be outnumbered soon enough."

Laura laughed, moving to fix herself a drink. "So... no little magic tots of your own then?"

"Sadly no. There was one, years ago but... after his mother died I felt it best he be taken elsewhere for his safety. And since I gained my little not dying problem I can't have any others even if I found the right woman for the job." Harry shrugged as he continued to cook. Laura was quiet as she sat with her glass of cold milk and watched him. The sun had been up for a while now, and she knew the kids would be up soon, and behind them her husband's friends.

"Forgive me for asking but... did you ever find out what became of him? Your son?"

"Oh yes. I received regular reports twice a year from the woman who helped smuggle him out of England for me until I was able to meet him when he was around 17. Today he's... well, we're still in touch. But... even after he found me I... I've never really felt like his father. By then I was so wrapped up in my job that I hardly knew how to be anything else than a living weapon, let alone a parent or even just a friend." He finished cooking the last of the batter piled the last pancake onto the third large stack.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. He's a fine man, my Cedric. It took him quite a while to find his own way but when he did? I couldn't be prouder. And he did every bit of it on his own with both my and your worlds against him. And without my rather long and unfortunately famous shadow cast over him as well. I'm the lucky one. He's chosen to let me be part of his life. He didn't have to do that after I gave him up. Perhaps if I'm truly fortunate, I'll be able to find other long lost Potters, or Cedric may have a sprog to two of his own." Harry sent the pan, batter bowl, and everything else he'd dirtied to the sink with a flick of his wand. Soon enough they were washing themselves as he fixed himself a cup of coffee. "If given the chance I know he'd be a far better father than I or his adopted one ever were." Harry pasted on his best smile even though he didn't feel much like doing so and sent the food through the open door, followed quickly by plates and utensils.

Laura watched in amazement, a genuine smile blooming on her tired face. "Clint was seriously underselling your powers, Harry. You're dead useful in the kitchen." He chuckled as he slid his wand back up his sleeve before offering his free arm to her. "If you ever decide to retire from saving the world, you're always welcome here. You wouldn't believe the messes just those two make let alone their father."

"Believe me, I do. The woman that taught me how to do all of this household magic, she had seven children. And now each of them have sprogs of their own. And even some of them... well... It's a rather large family I feed at Christmas." He sipped his coffee as he led her through the open doorway towards the delicious smells of breakfast.

Distracted as he was, Harry didn't see Tony. How could he, when the man had crept away back up the stairs after overhearing at least part of what Harry had said to Clint's wife before the food had started coming out of the kitchen on its own.

**o0o**

Steve couldn't stand sitting around doing nothing like this. It was one thing to lay low, lick your wounds, and make a plan. It was another to sit and.... and wait. He was a man of action, damn it! He needed to DO something! Every moment he was stuck here was one more that Ultron was closer to whatever his ultimate goal was.

Which is what led him outside to the wood pile with an ax. It gave him something to do. Something to feel needed. It also gave him something repetitive to do so he could let his mind work through the revelation overload he'd been trying to process the last few days.

Tony came out after a while, picked up an ax, and started on another pile of wood. They worked side by side, but Steve was intent on ignoring him, just as he had that morning. He wasn't angry at Tony for creating Ultron. Okay, maybe he was, a little. More than a little. But he was mostly angry that Tony didn't see the need to confide in the rest of them. Not even Harry, the one man on the team closer to Tony than even Pepper Potts. And that was saying something.

After everything with Bucky... and all of Harry's secrets - which he was damn sure he still didn't know all of them - and now Thor taking off to who knew where... Clint having a secret family. And then there was the fact SHIELD was HYDRA damn near all along. There was only so much betrayal, lies, and secrets a man could take.

Tony, for his part, had come out for the same reason Steve had. Sitting around never did him any good. Always got him in trouble. He had to keep his hands busy. Had to keep his mind active. Being as tech deprived as he was right now, he couldn't keep from dwelling on his own guilt. So he put his mind to the task of problem solving. Pushing ahead to try and figure out their next step and if Ultron had thought of it already or not. It didn't help that Steve, a man he considered his friend - and boy was it rare he actually bestowed such a title on anyone outside of his unexpectedly large extended family - was avoiding him all day. And most of the day before, really.

"Thor didn't say where he was going for answers?"

Steve glanced at him, split another log, and knocked the pieces to the side before he turned to grab another. "Sometimes my teammates don't tell me things," he said. He stopped long enough to look past Tony towards the house. Clint was on the porch with his son, his daughter behind him in one of the chairs reading. He looked so different from the ex-carny turned SHIELD assassin Steve had always known him as. Though... a lot of his time away from the tower made a hell of a lot of sense now. The captain grabbed another log and set it on the stump, then lifted the ax again. "I was kinda hoping Thor would be the exception."

Tony split a log, then bent to grab another. "Yeah... give him time," he replied. "We don't know what the Maximoff kid showed him."

Steve scoffed, setting up another log. "Earth's Mightiest Heroes." His voice was thick with sarcasm. "Pulled us apart like cotton candy."

Tony almost scowled. "Seems you walked away alright."

Steve narrowed his eyes, studying the man in front of him. "Is that a problem?"

Tony shrugged, his tone almost flippant as he set up another log to split. "I don't trust a guy without a dark side." The ax came down. "Call me old fashioned."

"Let's just say you haven't seen it yet," Steve replied.

Up on the porch, Clint hazarded a few looks towards his two friends as Harry stepped out on the porch with a tray of cold drinks. Laura was right behind him. "How's it going out here?" she asked as Harry passed drinks out to her children, then offered one to Clint. She was about to sit down when she heard her husband comment on the scene out by the wood piles.

"That can't be good," he said just after Steve ripped a rather thick log in half.

Harry sighed. "For Godric's sake if they puff up their chests any larger they might explode their lungs."

That seemed to be all it took before Laura was down the steps of the porch and crossing the yard.

"What the heck does she think she's doing?" Clint said, starting to follow. He was stopped by Harry who shook his head and nodded back to the kids. "She'll be fine. Trust me. Your wife's a lot like Hermione. Those two would probably be more afraid of her than they ever would be of you."

"Gee thanks for the vote of confidence there, Gandalf."

When she'd returned to the porch and accepted the glass of iced tea Harry had offered her, it was with a very smug look on her face. "There. Problem solved. Though they might be pouting later when they realize what I did."

"You used the mom voice didn't you?"

"Of course not. I used the pitiful pregnant woman's voice on them. Now, Harry, the gutters. I've been trying to get Clint to clean those out for ages but every time he goes to do it-"

"Let me guess," he said, setting his glass down. "He gets an important call and then he's out the door with his gear?"

"Every single time."

"Well... I don't have a specific spell for gutters, but I know a few that might work. Do you have a compost pile? I can always send the organic matter there so nothing goes to waste."

**o0o**

Harry had JUST finished with the gutters and come inside to find- "And nobody thought to tell me my fourth favorite pirate was visiting?"

"Fourth?" Tony quipped.

"Well, there's Tim Curry's Captain Hook in third place. Absolutely love that muggle film. Above him is that one bloke from those Disney ones. That one based on the park ride."

"Jack Sparrow?" Laura suggested

"No. The one with the wooden eye. Oh that's always fun to watch."

"Who's top of the list?" Natasha asked, much to Nick Fury's annoyance.

Harry accepted the plate and ice water that was put in front of him from Laura. She gave him a squeeze on the shoulder in a silent thank you for the gutters. "Patchy, of course."

"Patchy?" Bruce said in slight confusion.

Clint and Natasha nearly laughed. Tony did laugh. Steve lifted a brow as he looked towards Harry.

"Yes. Patchy the Pirate. You know, Spongebob's number one fan?"

It was the last moment of levity the team would have for many long hours to come.

**o0o**

Harry didn't like being left behind.

He couldn't go with Tony given the place he was headed was top to bottom tech and Tony was damn sure they didn't spring for the magitech upgrades. So, for the safety of the world, Harry best not go near the place. Just in case.

And while he would have been insanely useful, even if just for transportation, in South Korea, that wasn't exactly practical either given that Thor was gone. If Bruce lost his marbles again the only other person besides Tony in the now quite damaged Hulkbuster who could at least slow the beast down was Harry himself. And that could be done easily with special wizard's liquor. And lots of it. All else fails, open a portal to a frozen wasteland and hope for the best.

So, to the tower Harry went with Bruce. Just as well, he could fetch some extra equipment while he was back in town.

**o0o**

There was a pause in the arguing when the familiar golden spark started in the lab. It was off to the side just a bit, almost out of the way but not quite. The spark was spinning, casting off smaller sparks as it grew and grew to the size of a man before its creator stepped out and with a dismissive wave it was gone.

Harry pushed back his hood and frowned as green eyes took in the sight before him. The woman that got into his head before flinched when he slammed down his occlumency shields. Throwing in a very low growl for good measure. His gaze moved from her to her brother who seemed unable to keep still. Fidgeting and shifting his weight constantly. He moved his attention from them to Clint. Then Steve. Bruce looked guilty as sin and Tony, when Harry's eyes landed on him.... Oh he resisted the urge to dive right into that head and rip from it an explanation. He stamped this down, though. That was the OLD Harry talking. The Savior. The soldier that did whatever it took to end the war. Not the Avenger. Not the Hero.

"Where the hell have you been?!"

"Getting my gear. What the hell have YOU been doing?! Where the hell is Nat?!"

And that was all they needed to restart the argument. The pendant housing the resurrection stone hanging from Harry's neck felt warm against his skin beneath the armor he'd retrieved from a trunk at Hermione and Ron's place. A trunk he swore he'd never open again. By the time the thing was scorching hot against his flesh, the fighting had reached its peak only to result in Thor storming in, determined and resolute. Before the Avengers could react the God of Thunder had leapt unto the chamber in which Harry had gathered the... whatever it was his teammates were fighting about was currently inert. But if he knew his classic muggle literature at all, he knew that wasn't going to be true for much longer.

The hammer went up high, and a lightning storm gathered in the lab. Harry was gasping for air, trying to call forth a shield or summon a chair - anything to get between that hammer and the chamber before it came crashing down as seemed to be the intent of the Asgardian prince.

But he was unable. The heat and the pain were nearly unbearable, as if...

"STOP!" Harry gasped out, but no one heard him over the crackle of electricity. Over the sudden overload warning sirens of the machines that had powered back on as a result.

And then he did.

And nothing happened for a few moments.

The heat, the pain began to recede and Harry stared at the chamber with a great sense of dread. One he had not known for many long years. "What... What did you-" was all he managed to get out before he quickly threw up a chi shield to protect him from the flying shrapnel as the chamber exploded. A man, or at least something in the shape of one, rose from the metal coffin and crouched at the end with such grace and ease Harry had not seen since his duels against the inner circle Death Eaters. Hell, against old no-nose himself.

Even as powerful as he was, as unkillable as he was, his fight or flight instinct was telling him to run. Run fast, and run far. And even then.... he doubted he'd be able to get away.

The false man looked at each of them before it zeroed in on the one who gave it life and leapt at him. Thor grabbed him, using its momentum to throw it with both hands through the smart glass windows of the lab and out into the commons of the penthouse proper.

Thor followed it, and right behind him Steve leapt out through the broken window to the floor of the commons below. Harry, still shaken, didn't trust his magic not to screw up and followed the others out the doors to the stairs to join them. Thor set his hammer on the corner of a table and raised his hand to stop them from going and closer as the red, slightly green, and gold thing hovered there at the outer window, staring out upon the city around them.

Harry gripped his wands in each hand, ready to fight if it came to it, his senses in overdrive. His skin crawling as he did his level best to keep his magic reigned in. If he didn't get into a fight soon, or get Steve alone for a good solid six hours minimum, he was afraid he might do something really stupid.

And then.... it turned and floated back towards them. And it changed its skin. Now it looked like it was wearing clothes. Well, it was better than looking like a naked Ken doll he supposed.

"That was.... odd," it said in an eerily familiar voice that was clear it set the others on edge. From the corner of his eye, Harry noticed the others take position. Good, they at least had enough sense not to let their guard down as Thor seemed to have done.

"Thank you," it said looking directly at the man who'd brought him to life. Then, a golden cape began to materialize, starting first at the shoulders and then draping down his back in a copy of Thor's own.

Steve tensed a bit. "Thor? You helped create this?"

The Asgardian merely glanced at him in acknowledgement, but kept the bulk of his attention on the artificial man. "I've had a vision. A whirlpool that sucks in all hope of life and at its center is that." He pointed directly to the red man's forehead.

Bruce edged a little closer. "What's the gem?"

"It's the mind stone. It's one of the six infinity stones," Thor explained, finally looking at the others, but not fully turning away from the creature that had been created in the lab behind them. "The greatest power in the universe. Unparalleled in its destructive capabilities."

And there was Harry's fight or flight response again. He stamped it down, but there was a niggling feeling in the back of his mind and green eyes chanced a glance around the room. There, in the corner he saw it. The blackness. The cold and ever shrouded figure over which he and he alone held dominion. Death was... DEATH was afraid. Harry swallowed his own fear at the thought of such a primordial entity being fearful of anything. His attention was brought back to the situation at hand by Steve's voice.

"Then why'd you bring-"

Thor's booming voice interrupted. "Stark is right."

Bruce was clearly dismayed by this declaration. "Oh it's definitely the end times."

"The Avengers can't defeat Ultron. Not alone," Thor insisted, looking past the Avengers to the twins before casting his eyes back on the... well, it needed a name now didn't it?

The suspicion in Steve's tone didn't leave, though. If possible, it only increased. "Why does your vision sound like JARVIS?"

Finally, Tony could say something. He'd been biting his tongue this whole time, still slightly in awe of what he and Bruce, with a contribution from Point Break he supposed, had achieved here. "We reconfigured JARVIS's matrix to create something new."

The, well Vision, moved slowly as it briefly looked at each of them in turn. Likely, Harry supposed, cataloguing how much of a threat each one may pose him. Not much, Harry thought to himself as he stole another look to the writhing black mass in the corner of the room.

"I think I've had my fill of new," Steve replied.

"You think I'm a child of Ultron?"

"You're not?"

It shook its head slightly. "I'm not Ultron. I'm not JARVIS. I remember... I am." It looked to Bruce, who now stood a little closer to Tony, not wanting their creation to get too close.

Wanda came forward out of her brother's arms. "I looked in your head and saw annihilation."

It turned its head to look directly at her. "Look again."

Clint muttered under his breath.

"Their powers," Thor started. "The horrors in our heads. Ultron himself! They all came from the mind stone. All nothing compared to what it can unleash. And with it on our side-"

Steve shook his head. "Is it? Are you?" he asked, addressing this man-thing directly. "On our side?"

It appeared thoughtful. "I don't think it's that simple."

Harry frowned. "Well, it better get real simple real soon."

The man shook its head. "I am on the side of life," it said. "Ultron is not." It said as it started moving again. Harry tracked the movement and wasn't pleased when he realized with each time it moved in their presence it was getting closer and closer to that hammer.

"What's he waiting for?" Steve asked.

"You," it replied with certainty.

"Where?"

"Sokovia." Their attention turned to Clint, but Harry kept watching this man. "He's got Nat there, too."

Bruce stepped away from Tony, coming as close as he dared which, admittedly, was closer than anyone else save Thor. "If we're wrong about you..." He took off his glasses. "If you're the monster that Ultron made you to be..."

"What will you do?" the man asked simply as it looked from one Avenger to another. Its curious gaze taking them in before moving to the next. It lingered on Harry for a moment longer than he was comfortable with before it moved on to Steve. Then back to Bruce. "I don't want to kill Ultron. He's unique and he's in pain. But that pain will roll over the Earth. So he must be destroyed." He walked as he talked. Harry winced when he came near, the pendant with the stone of his own warming, but not to the level it had peaked at before, when the man came nearer him. "We have to act now and not one of us can do it without the others.

"Maybe I am a monster," it continued, looking at its own hands. Those red, slightly shiny and strange combinations of organic tissue and metal hands. "I don't think I'd know if I were one and not what you are..." It looked to Tony again. "And not what you intended." And then it did something that nearly made Harry drop his wands in shock. It reached out, grabbed the hammer and... actually lifted it. "So there may be no way to make you trust me. But we need to go."

And then, he simply offered Thor the hammer.

Thor who was staring at it in slight confusion, shock, and relief all rolled into one.

The twins looked at the other Avengers, not realizing the significance of the act the man had just performed and why three of them looked shocked and confused, one looked like he was a proud father, and the one they knew to turn into a large green rage monster was clearly very worried and concerned for the implications.

Thor accepted his hammer back, unsure exactly of what to do at this point as the man walked away from them. "Right," he said after a long, awkward moment as he turned to follow him. He pat Tony on the shoulder when he passed by him. "Well done."

Steve looked back at the team. "Three minutes," he said, taking control of the situation again. "Grab what you need."

**o0o**

Harry was just strapping his armor back in place when there was a knock at the door of the room he'd hidden himself in to check his chest. The mark on his chest, the center of the starburst scar from his second AK at point blank range was still tender. The skin no longer blistered from the scorching heat of the stone's pendant but the outline of it was still quite clear and pink. He'd hissed as he had rubbed burn salve to ease it and speed the already unnaturally quick healing his body underwent.

"Door's open," he called, expecting Tony when he looked up but finding Steve instead.

"You okay?"

"So you noticed."

"I always notice when it comes to you."

Harry rolled his eyes as he adjusted the last buckle.

"New armor?"

"Old," he replied. "It was the last gift I ever received from Cedric's mother. I figure," he said, reaching up to brush his fingers across the crest that had been tooled into the old basilisk hide with such care. "I figured that given Ultron's used Tony's designs, and the Legion was made with magic resistant metals I might need a bit of extra protection from any special anti-magic weaponry they might be equipped with."

"You okay to fight?"

Harry scoffed at the absurdity of the question at a time like this. "Are you? By my watch we've nearly run out of those three minutes you gave us. No last minute equipment checks?" he asked sarcastically as he checked his own, looking into the pouch on his hip to make sure he had double his usual supply of emergency potions. And a few... extra pieces of equipment he usually didn't carry standard.

He startled only a little when he felt arms around him from behind. "Suit. Shield," Steve said, tightening his hold a little. "And my wizard. Yeah. Looks like I've got everything."

"You'd better not get yourself killed, Steven," Harry said, turning in his lover's arms so he could look at him properly. "Or your wizard will be very cross with you."

A hand came up to stroke his cheek, and Harry couldn't help but close his eyes and sigh, turning his face a bit into the touch. "You get killed, Harry, you walk it off and get back in the fight." His face was turned by the hand at his cheek as Steve leaned in. Harry nearly gasped when he felt Steve's lips pressed against his own, and would have had it not been stifled by the invading tongue slipping into his mouth, pressing against his own.

The door of the room opened, catching them by surprise as Bruce's initial statement of Tony sending him to get Harry became a stammering mess of "Tony. Harry. Looking... Cap?"

"It's not-"

"It's exactly what it bloody looks like," Harry said sharply. "Not a word to Tony or the jolly green giant's going to find his liquor supply cut off entirely and we both know how much he enjoys his firewhisky."

"Yeah.... yeah," Bruce said, glancing back out in the hallway again. "Might want to, ah..." he pointed to the corner of his mouth. "Bit of spit," he said awkwardly then, stepping back out of the room. "Cap. Harry."

Once the door was closed, Harry sighed in relief.

"Why are you so afraid of what Tony thinks?"

"He's family. And he's very overprotective of me. You should hear what he thinks of my gold digging scam artist clout chasing boyfriend he's never even met. Now lets go, Soldier. Earth won't save itself."

**o0o**

He stared at Bruce with a stern expression as Cap boarded the quinjet ahead of him. "Not. One. Word," he reminded the scientist, who held his hands up in surrender.

"He won't hear it from me," he said. "Make no promises about the big guy though."

Harry nodded and went up the ramp. Bruce wasn't far behind him.

**o0o**

The moment his feet touched the ground he was off. He and the twins were working evac. While Wanda and Harry could use magic to get people up and about, Pietro's speed ensured he had a farther reach than they did individually.

Clint was their eye in the sky on the city while Tony sought out Ultron with the artificial man Tony had dubbed Vision - how original. Then again, Harry had mused when he'd heard it during the flight, he was Tony's kid so to speak. It was a parent's right to bestow their child with any unfortunate name they chose. At least it wasn't something as outlandish as Pudding or Brian. Harry opened another portal to the outskirts of the city to let the next wave of evacuees through.

"Sparks up. This block's clear. Heading north," Harry called out over the coms as he shot red sparks in the air to signal his current location. "Thor, Bruce, you guys found Nat yet?"

 _"Not yet. These tunnels go on for ages,"_ Bruce's voice replied.

 _"Keep looking,"_ Cap ordered.

And on it went. Harry flung out an imperius as far and as wide as he could and waited for them to come to him. Willing anyone it touched to come to him. Follow the soothing, calm sense of contentment. The soothing sense of safety. They wanted to leave their homes. They wanted to listen to the kind man who lured them away like a pied piper lures mice and children. Imperius wasn't one he was too fond of, and he'd made peace with his use of the Unforgivables years ago. But the emotionless, empty faces that always stared back at him when he used it would always unsettle him.

As the first of them started to turn up, he opened the portal with the sling ring. He need not raise his voice to have them hear his words, which was good because he didn't think it would be wise to alert the enemy of what they were doing with the civilians. No, the Imperius would make sure they all heard him loud and clear in their minds if not with their ears. "All of you are to step through here. On the other side you will continue moving as safely as you can for one mile away from the city with your friends and loved ones. When you are one mile away, the enchantment will break. But you must not return to the city until you are told it is safe for you. Now go! Quickly!"

Just as before, when the last one stepped through the portal, he closed it behind him and sent up a red spark. "Still moving Northward," he said in the coms.

**o0o**

Clint wasn't sure what the blurry thing heading his way was, chased by a couple of the legionaire bots, but it became much clearer when he heard Harry's voice as it zoomed past chanting "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!" and fading into the distance as the blur that was the team's wizard veered suddenly into a sharp right turn, causing the two bots to crash straight through a building as Harry kept going.

"What was that?!" Wanda shouted over to him.

"Don't know! Must be that damn wizard!" he replied as he pulled another arrow from his quiver.

Harry meanwhile was careening mostly out of control. One moment he was sniping bots from above on his old and reliable Firebolt. Next he was pulling a Wronski Feint in an attempt to shake a tail and the metal bastard lit the end of his broom on fire. He managed to put it out but... yeah. He was going to have to get a new one when this was over. If he could just distract a few more of the buggers though...

And that's when the broom finally gave out. "SHIT!" he exclaimed as he started to fall. The crash landing wouldn't kill him, for long, but he really couldn't take the risk that he'd be unconscious longer than a few moments. Didn't stop him from trying to steer the fucking thing directly at some Ultron bots anyway. Maybe if he was lucky it'd impale one of them as it came down given the speed he'd been going.

At least, that was the idea until he was shot down. Splinters of the ruined broom went one way and Harry, unfortunately, started careening the other a little too close to the edge of the city.

**o0o**

"What the hell Harry!" was the first thing he heard when he regained consciousness.

"Natasha? You're alive!"

"Yeah. Almost wasn't when you came flying straight through the windshield at me."

"Where's Bruce?" He got his answer when a roar sounded deep in the city. "Ah. There's Bruce. Where am I?"

"Got hit pretty hard there huh."

"We're stationary. Sitting ducks. Why aren't we dead yet?"

Nat rolled her eyes, cocked her gun, and pointed it out of the broken windshield at another of the bots. "You kind of wrecked my ride when you landed."

"Sorry you were so inconvenienced," he groaned, then hissed as a sharp pain went through his leg. "What the fuck!" And that's when he saw it.

The blood. And the hole eaten through the seat of the truck Natasha had commandeered. She looked up, firing another couple of rounds into another bot. "Yeah, I'm not touching that."

A few moments later, he had a vial in each hand from his pouch. He pounded one down, followed by the other. Two more and he reached down to remove the shard of glass from his leg. A hissed couple of healing charms and the skin, at least, was healed over and the wound sealed. The potions could handle the rest.

Harry's earpiece was lost along the way somewhere, so he didn't hear Tony's call to Nat. "Relax shellhead," she said in response. "Not all of us can fly."

The wizard did one final check of himself before considering his self-triage complete.

"So uh... you got another plan for getting us to church?"

Harry nodded, a muttered aguamenti cleaned him up well enough to not be a danger by dripping on someone before thinking about his destination. Without a clear picture to go on though, he settled for focusing on where Steve might be at the moment, then he held out his hand. "Don't worry, it's not got any blood on it now," he said. She didn't hesitate as she took his hand and with a sudden jerking movement and sensation of her entire body being squeezed down rather small, they were gone from the cab of the truck being climbed on by Ultron bots.

**o0o**

With a crack of thunder that caught Thor by slight surprise, Harry and Natasha appeared right next to Steve, with the wizard staggering a bit before he caught himself. Cap spared them a glance, relief clear in the blue eyes as Natasha moved towards Tony to get an idea of the stiuation.

"You good?" Steve asked him.

"Walking it off, Cap," Harry replied, taking the brief reprieve to slide the death stick back up his sleeve and go for his pouch. As he was reaching in deep to his elbow, searching for something with a bit more effective than the bombardas that the damn bots seemed to have learned to recognize, Thor stepped forward towards the archway, shouting up at the murderbot that seemed to have only gotten bigger and meaner since their skirmish at the derelict shipyard.

"Is that the best you can do!?" Thor taunted.

Harry groaned, focusing on searching through his pouch until finally his fingers felt the familiar grooves of what he was looking for. He pulled it out as Steve shook his head, looking at the god of thunder as Ultron called his army to him. "You had to ask..."

"This is the best I can do," Ultron said.

Harry pulled his arm out of his pouch, a sword in his hand. The teeth of the mokeskin snapped closed once the tip of the blade was clear.

"This is exactly what I wanted. All of you. Against all of me. How can you possibly hope to stop me."

"Like the old man said," Tony replied, causing Steve to look his way. "Together."

The drone army of Ultron legionnaires attacked, and Hulk shook the church with a mighty roar.

As the core Avengers defended the drill, Harry took Pietro's lead and worked the perimeter of the room. As he sped around Harry jumped from one spot to another with apparition, not bothering to be careful of the cracking and popping and occasional boom of his magical jumps in space as he drove the Sword of Gryffindor into the metal drones of the Ultron swarm. Coolant and oil spurting from amputated mechanical limbs. Sparks as the sword was driven deep into the facsimile of a chest cavity or the quick slice across the rods and coils that made the necks as he relieved the bots of their heads.

It wasn't graceful and it certainly wasn't pretty as he gave himself over to the old instinct. The adrenaline pumping and his magic seeming to sing with the carnage that was wrought both by him and those around him. He was almost high with it, uncaring of the laser fire he took to the shoulder or his side. It hurt, a lot, but at least it cauterized before he could bleed all over the place. The pain only seemed to make him more... feral and vicious with his attacks rather than slow him down.

Above them all, Ultron himself came into the fight, and Vision engaged him head on only to be thrown back into the stonework of the crumbling dome that topped the old, ruined building. Mere seconds later Vision was flying straight at Ultron again, the stone in his head shooting a golden beam of pure, raw power at the mechanical abomination. The resurrection stone flared once again, but Harry didn't notice it this time. The heat blending in with the pain of his current injuries as they tried, and some failed, to heal properly.

Ultron was blasted outside by Vision, who followed him out, soon to be joined by Thor and then Tony. The duo added the power of lightning and repulsor fire to help Vision overpower him. Harry only really noticed when Hulk left the relative safety of the church with a roar and sent Ultron flying into the distance before chasing off a bunch of the drones that, clearly, showed some semblance of fear.

Harry stopped apparating when there were no more stragglers, at least for the time being. He staggered a bit and used his sword as if it were a cane to keep himself from falling over. "Merlin I feel old," he said, checking his shoulder. His armor had taken the bulk of the hit, but it could have definitely been a lot worse without it.

"Okay, we gotta move out," Steve said looking at each of them briefly. Harry only gave him a small nod when he looked his way. He'd had a hell of a lot worse. He'd be fine if he could catch his breath a bit. "Even I can tell the air is getting thin. You guys get to the boats. I'll sweep for stragglers. Be right behind you."

"What about the core?" Clint asked.

Wanda stepped up next to it, hands twitching and itching to keep going. Keep fighting. Harry could feel her magic from where he stood. It was unlike his own. Unlike the sorcerers like Strange and Wong even. But it was strong. And it was potent. On par, possibly, with his own if she had the right training with it. "I'll protect it," she said, her tone brokering no argument. "It's my job."

"Nat. Harry. Let's go."

The wizard hesitated. He wanted to stay behind, but knew his magic would be put to best use by helping get what was left of the citizens out of harm's way. And while he wasn't exactly great at healing magic... he could triage well enough to get the injured stable if possible. He stood up straighter, giving a nod towards Wanda before heading off after Clint, only to be stopped by Steve's voice calling back to him.

"Harry, wait!"

He turned to see Cap taking out his earpiece for a few moments, cutting himself out of the coms. "What? Kind of on a time crunch with the flying city and all!"

"When this is over, you and me. Grab a priest or whatever you magic people have instead."

"Are you-" Harry spluttered, quickly realizing what the man had implied. "Steven! Now of all times?!"

"Why not?! It's not like there's ever a good time to bring it up!"

"Impending doom! Murderbots!" Harry reminded him sharply.

Steve grinned like the cheeky bastard he was and put his earpiece back in, heading off with a shout of, "That's not a no!"

Harry used the sling ring to get across the city faster, making up the lost time from his boyfriend's insanely inappropriately timed attempt at, well, at exactly what Harry himself had wanted to do for some time now. It wasn't until he was on one of the boats, assisting the SHIELD medics with the injured and running a quick diagnostic on an unconscious, but still very much breathing older woman that he realized Steve had asked him... in front of Wanda. "Fuck."

**o0o**

There was no time to do anything other than jump out of the way as the quinjet bore down on them, heavy machine gun fire tearing straight through everything in its path. Thor jumped left, and Steve jumped right. By the time he was up on his feet again, it was just in time to see Pietro standing still. His hand reaching out, a grimace on his face and his body riddled with holes.

And then he was down. Clint had come out from behind an upturned car, kneeling by his side.

He should be used to this. He was a soldier. He'd seen young men blown apart by land mines. And others younger than the speedster gunned down by heavy artillery - fresh out of boot and not quite fast enough on the draw with their rifles. Barely men and drafted into a war whether they wanted to be there or not.

But it never got any easier.

Thor launched himself into the air with a swing of his hammer as Steve put the shield on his back and ran over as Clint checked the body for any signs of life, looking up only when he was certain... the boy was dead.

"Get the kid," Steve ordered solemnly before bending down to roll Pietro onto his back so it would be easier to pick him up off the ground. He reached out to close those pale, lifeless eyes before lifting him up by the arms and hauling his still warm corpse to the last waiting lifeboat.

Clint followed him, the two going separate ways as Steve sought out a clear bit of space to lay the young man to rest. Clint went to reunite the desperate mother and frightened son.

He took a moment to look down at the young man one more time before he pushed what it made him feel to the back of his thoughts. Now was not the time. Provided he lived through this he could deal with it later. They could all deal with it later. He just didn't want to be the one to break the news to the sister. Slipping back into the role of leader, of their commander, he left the boat and took charge, ordering the last of the refugees onto the boat, intending to guard it against any stragglers right until the last second as he waited for Tony to give the signal for Wanda to bail.

That was the plan.

That is not exactly what happened.

The earth beneath his feet dropped out from under him without warning. He took off at a run back to the boat, leaping across the ever growing divide and hoping he was going to make it.

Cap slammed onto the steel ramp, scrambling around to look over the edge as the city rapidly descended below him.

There was nothing he could do. Wanda wasn't on the boat. She was trapped down there and he had to hope Tony, Thor, or Vision would somehow manage to get her out in time.

**o0o**

The shock of what happened didn't wear off for a few days. Harry stayed behind in Sokovia long enough to work with SHIELD and the Sovereign States to bring in healers to help support the muggle doctors. After all, what better way to start exposing magic - native Earth magic and its people - to the world than through a humanitarian effort. Seeing as how most of their potions didn't work on the muggles though, they had to rely solely on their magic and their healing spells to do what they could.

But it was much appreciated by many who needed the aid.

The city was a crater. The country of Sokovia in tatters and its people scattered to the winds. But at least they managed to save so many. It could have been far, far worse a loss of life.

As for the Avengers themselves? They patched themselves up, took a headcount, and were glad the loss was only one - assuming Hulk had buggered off somewhere for some solitude. That wasn't exactly unheard of given the nomad life Bruce had lived before the team was put together. Before Tony had offered him a home and a safe place for the Hulk to rage out.

Tony helped Wanda with final arrangements for her brother, if only to keep the guilt of his death at bay during waking hours. The young man's tombstone wasn't in Sokovia, but rather he'd been cremated at Wanda's request. Harry had a special locket fashioned, gifting it to the young woman quietly with a murmured explanation that if she wished, she could spoon a little into the locket and carry her brother with her all of her days. And in time, perhaps she'd like to talk to a friend of his who'd gone through the pain of losing not just their brother, but their twin.

Harry was glad to see her wearing the locket the day after Pietro's cremation.

He offered her a place in his rooms at the tower. Not tech that may go haywire around her unique brand of magic. And a calm, quiet place for her to mourn her loss in peace.

"Where will you stay?"

"I have an apartment in the city where I spent most of my down time. But if you need anything, the three paintings in the living room are, well, not quite alive but they are magic and connected to a set of 2 others. If you need help or someone to talk to, they'll be more than happy to listen and fetch someone for you. All I ask is that you don't use your magic on the paintings. They are as precious to me as what you keep in that pendant around your neck is to you."

Though he did instruct Kreacher to keep an eye on her. Make sure she ate and slept properly and that she should not see him.

Clint bailed the moment he was cleared by medical for travel. Not that he would have waited much longer anyway. No one could blame him really. Not after what they'd learned about him during this particularly rough mission. Nat was ready to smuggle him out if they didn't release him soon. Then again she needed something to keep her mind off Bruce and wherever he and the big guy had wandered off to.

Thor decided to seek out Jane, and his friends had wished him luck, knowing that with the state of things between the Asgardian god and the mortal scientist, he was going to need it.

Which left Steve.

Steve who was sitting on the end of his and Harry's bed looking up into wide, hopeful green eyes as the man offered the box wrapped poorly in red, white, and blue paper. "You know my birthday was last week."

"And you thought I'd forgotten," Harry said. "I didn't. I just... well, with everything going on I... I didn't think you'd appreciate a party. And then I got caught up with non-Avengers work stuff and-"

"Thank you," Steve said, taking the small box from him. "But I would have welcomed something more than a blow job on my birthday."

Harry slapped his arm playfully. "You're lucky you even got that, Soldier. I'd told you I was rather busy with work. Now open it before I change my bloody mind."

Steve smiled, hooking a fingernail under the uneven tape and pulling it back. He made short work of the paper and found inside it a small box. He frowned, looking up in suspicion. Harry looked down at him, still hopeful. Still wide eyed. He gave the Captain a small nod. "Go on then," he said softly.

His attention back on the box, Steve turned it over in his hands before turning the front to face him. A small golden latch against the red wood was undone and the lid lifted. Inside was a band of gold with flecks of what looked like green and blue worked into the metal with no clear pattern or design.

"It wasn't a no," Harry started, his stomach in all sorts of knots. "Because I was annoyed you brought it up first."

Steve didn't dare take his eyes off the contents of the box even as Harry continued. "And seriously, you couldn't have picked a romantic date night? Or my birthday?"

"I already apologized for that."

"A murderbot apocalypse, Steven," Harry said. "Now are you going to put it on or not because I don't know whether to vomit from nerves or freak out and wipe your memory to save myself from embarrassment."

**o0o**

Harry was having a rather animated conversation with Thor about the differences and similarities between Earth's magics and Asgard's when he spied Steve and Tony making their way over. "That's my cue, I suppose," the wizard said, nodding towards the other two. "Next time you visit, bring more of that ale and I'll break out the goblin mead. We'll see who's brew is the stronger."

Thor clasped him on the shoulder, giving a friendly squeeze. "I think we both know the answer to that one, little magician."

He grinned when he was released, patting Thor on the arm. "Have safe travels. And try not to get yourself killed out there."

"You could come with me. Your skill with that sword would be welcome company on this quest."

Harry shook his head. "My questing days are behind me," he said as he was reminded of the last major quest he'd been on. Horcruxes. He almost shuddered, but the feeling was kept at bay by the arrival of his two favorite men. "Besides, I've got to stick around to make sure those two don't end up killing each other."

Hearing the end of the conversation, Steve laughed. Tony looked falsely offended.

Harry made his excuses, clearly noticing that the other two wanted a word with Thor before he left for regions unknown. Steve had asked him to get the others and meet him and Nat in the hangar for training. They'd had enough down time. It was time to get to work.


	2. Mid-Credits

_A bright, violent light exploded in the void._

_A whirlwind of color and power and life._

_The boom of a shockwave and where there was no sound there was now such a sudden cacophony and then... then...._

_It began as a spark. A tiny flame in the expanse. And it grew into an all consuming monster. And the screams.... of sweet, merciful creation the screams!_

_"Quickly! Now is the time! Before it becomes too powerful!"_

_Streaks of colored light clashed with the wildfire that consumed the stars themselves. Their forms uncertain, a range of infinite possibility and shape and substance. The more they clashed, the weaker the fiery beast became until, finally, as they pooled their power together and attacked as one, it was beaten._

_And the fire smothered until all that remained was a singular black mass and glowing hot coal._

_"It is done."_

_"It is contained."_

_Around them the vastness of the void, once filled with so many lights, so many voices and sounds was... less somehow. But still what remained, every growing, ever expanding, was still remarkably beautiful._

_"Our forms are failing."_

_"We must never allow its true essence to be freed."_

_Three wove their energies into a cloth, and they wrapped this around the cooling ember to hide it from any in this new creation who may seek its power.  
_

_Three fused their powers into a weapon, and bound it to the cloth before together the six flung the package into the void. Pieces of themselves to guard the essence while what remained of the creature's form remain locked in a state of half decay. Unable to fade from existence but also unable to heal itself by the ever increasing desire and need to consume all life and all that exists._

_"It will be well guarded against any who may seek to wield it."_

_"We should have kept it with us. Only together we can shatter the prison."_

_"Without a warden the protections will fade with our demise..." spoke the green spark. "Which rapidly approaches."_

_"Then we find another way." T_ _he red one turned to the others and with the last of its strength, willed the others into another form. Inert, but everlasting, the great powers of this fledgling existence became colored ingots of essence. But when it turned its power upon itself, it was an ingot shrouded in mist and wisps of its own power, unable to fully transform itself._

  
Harry woke in a cold sweat, his breaths ragged in a panic he did not understand nor was certain had been his own. His chest was heaving as he tried to get his breathing under control, green eyes scanning the darkness of the space as if half expecting the colored entities to appear in the corners of the still unfamiliar bedroom.

So caught up in the remnants of the dream he had not noticed the shifting of the mattress until the hand - large and firm - touched his arm. "You okay?" The voice was low, the tiredness in it clear the man it belonged to was only half-awake.

"Nightmare," Harry said, starting to turn to get out of bed. He was pulled back, however. He didn't fight it. Instead nestled himself into the arms again and was comforted by the firm, broad chest against his back. A hand slid up his side as he curled back, making himself comfortable again in the hopes that he could get back to sleep. He focused on the hand stroking his side slowly as the man it belonged to started to drift back to sleep, the movements growing slower and slower until they stopped and the hand, adorned with only a thin band of gold and stone, came to rest casually on his hip. Harry reached down with his own hand and lay it over Steve's, smiling contentedly when he felt the cool metal of the ring against his fingers.

As the wizard let himself be lulled back into a light slumber, elsewhere in the New Avengers Compound a being that never slept sat in a space set up for the team's recreation and down time.

A chess board was set in front of it, and clearly a game was in progress.

"He does not yet know what he carries around his neck. You have lied to him," The Vision said seemingly to no one as he moved a piece on the board.

Another piece moved, untouched, from across the board in the dimly lit room. A voice, quiet, raspy replied to him. _"I have not lied. I have told him nothing."_

Vision moved another piece, white, of course. "Then you have lied by omission. He does not know what you truly are."

Another piece moved. A black bishop. It took a white pawn and cleared it from the board. _"I find I do not wish to become what I was. There is more... pleasure in letting the souls ripen before I consume them."_ A quiet contemplation, then, _"Besides, I've grown quite fond of this creation. Your stone's brothers would be proud of what they created. If they had a mouth piece like your own that is..."_

Vision said nothing as he moved another piece. A rook.

The raspy voice continued. _"Reality came to visit some time ago. It's a pity it could not complete its own transmutation."_

"How so?"

_"Its current form is incompatible with mortal life. It nearly killed the poor woman. Would have had it not been for my Master's Asgardian friend."_ The black knight was moved again.

It was claimed by a white queen. There was no significance to the patterns they played. One relied on the programming of part of its cognitive matrix. The Other upon the experience of millennia watching the mortals of this world invent then play this game. "And you have stalled long enough. He will need to learn the true purpose of his gift before it is too late."

_"Who are you to lecture me, child?"_

"One of six whom you still fear."

_"It would be unwise of a prisoner not to fear their jailer. Though I now have one to protect my essence, I myself am still only half of what I once was."_

"And you know why it had to be done," the Vision said, moving his queen into position to checkmate the black king before resetting the board for another game.

Before they can begin again, however, a woman appears in the doorway, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "Vis?"

"Wanda. What are you doing awake?" Vision says, turning his head to look at the door where she stands, a glass of milk in her hand. Ah, she must have heard him on her way from the kitchens.

Wanda looked around the room groggily. "Woke up thirsty.” She held up her glass a bit. “Were you talking to someone just now?"

"Myself," he replied. She gave him a confused, sleepy look.

"Why?"

"I have seen Harry do this often when he is thinking. I wished to try it and learn if there is any true benefit from it."

A raspy laugh came from the other side of the chess board. _"You really think she'll believe that? She can see into that new head of yours."_

She stared at him for a moment before shrugging and turning from the door. Once Vision was certain she was gone back to her own rooms, he turned his attention back to the chessboard and moved a pawn forward.

Across from him, the raspy voice of death tutted. _"And you lecture **me** about lying..."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't help myself. Just a bit of set-up for the Endgame down the road.

**Author's Note:**

> Beyond this tale is loose MCU canon until Infinity War, whenever I get around to that one. The next story (maybe 2) will be purely AU.
> 
> I initially wanted to keep Pietro alive because I really liked the character tbh, but at the same time, I didn't want to add to the already complicated list of characters I'm juggling. Especially since I'll be grabbing and dragging Bucky back into this madhouse soon enough.


End file.
